The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy

The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy PDF Author: James R. Chamberlain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inscriptions, Thai
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
Controversy over the inscription of Ramkhamhaeng, King of Sukhothai, d. 1298.

The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy

The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy PDF Author: James R. Chamberlain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inscriptions, Thai
Languages : en
Pages : 596

Get Book Here

Book Description
Controversy over the inscription of Ramkhamhaeng, King of Sukhothai, d. 1298.

The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy

The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy PDF Author: James R. Chamberlain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inscriptions, Thai
Languages : en
Pages : 596

Get Book Here

Book Description
Controversy over the inscription of Ramkhamhaeng, King of Sukhothai, d. 1298.

The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia

The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia PDF Author: Donald K. Swearer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438432526
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
An unparalleled portrait, Donald K. Swearer's Buddhist World of Southeast Asia has been a key source for all those interested in the Theravada homelands since the work's publication in 1995. Expanded and updated, the second edition offers this wide ranging account for readers at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Swearer shows Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia to be a dynamic, complex system of thought and practice embedded in the cultures, societies, and histories of Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. The work focuses on three distinct yet interrelated aspects of this milieu. The first is the popular tradition of life models personified in myths and legends, rites of passage, festival celebrations, and ritual occasions. The second deals with Buddhism and the state, illustrating how King Asoka serves as the paradigmatic Buddhist monarch, discussing the relationship of cosmology and kingship, and detailing the rise of charismatic Buddhist political leaders in the postcolonial period. The third is the modern transformation of Buddhism: the changing roles of monks and laity, modern reform movements, the role of women, and Buddhism in the West.

The King Never Smiles

The King Never Smiles PDF Author: Paul M. Handley
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300130597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. This book tells the unexpected story of his life and 60-year rule: how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha; and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political, autocratic, and even brutal. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king's youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skilful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Blasting apart the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley convincingly portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely-modified feudal dynasty. When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne after the still-unsolved shooting of his brother, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, crushing critics while attaining high status among his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch in the full light of the facts.

Contesting Visions of the Lao Past

Contesting Visions of the Lao Past PDF Author: Christopher E. Goscha
Publisher: NIAS Press
ISBN: 9788791114021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Laos's emergence as a modern nation-state in the 20th century owed much to a complex interplay of internal and external forces. Arguing that the historiography of Laos needs to be understood in this wider context, this study considers how the Lao have written their own nationalist and revolutionary history "on the inside," while others-the French, Vietnamese, and Thais-have attempted to write the history of Laos "from the outside" for their own political ends. As nationalist historiography, like the formation of the nation-state, does not emerge within a nationalist vacuum but rather is created and contested from inside and out, this incisive volume's approach has applications and implications far beyond Laos.

Disturbing Conventions

Disturbing Conventions PDF Author: Rachel V Harrison
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783480157
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Disturbing Conventions draws the study of Thai literature out of the relative isolation that has to date impeded its participation in the wider field of comparative and world literature. Predominantly penned by Thai academics, the collection decentres Thai literary studies in order to move beyond the traditionalist, conservative concerns of the academy which have, until relatively recently, foreclosed the use of “Western” theory in the study of Thai literature. The book introduces new frames of analysis to the study of Thai literature to bring it into dialogue with debates in wider fields and the world beyond its national borders. As a result, Disturbing Conventions offers an essential contribution to the comparative study of world literature and Asian cultural studies.

In the Land of Lady White Blood

In the Land of Lady White Blood PDF Author: Lorraine Gesick
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501719173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 109

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Book Description
An examination—through manuscripts preserved from the seventeenth century to the present—of the historical sensibilities and mindset of rural southern Thailand.

A Kingdom in Crisis

A Kingdom in Crisis PDF Author: Andrew MacGregor Marshall
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783606851
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
‘Perhaps the best introduction yet to the roots of Thailand’s present political impasse. A brilliant book.’ Simon Long, The Economist Struggling to emerge from a despotic past, and convulsed by an intractable conflict that will determine its future, Thailand stands at a defining moment in its history. Scores have been killed on the streets of Bangkok. Freedom of speech is routinely denied. Democracy appears increasingly distant. And many Thais fear that the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej is expected to unleash even greater instability. Yet in spite of the impact of the crisis, and the extraordinary importance of the royal succession, they have never been comprehensively analysed – until now. Breaking Thailand's draconian lèse majesté law, Andrew MacGregor Marshall is one of the only journalists covering contemporary Thailand to tell the whole story. Marshall provides a comprehensive explanation that for the first time makes sense of the crisis, revealing the unacknowledged succession conflict that has become entangled with the struggle for democracy in Thailand.

Human Rights in Thailand

Human Rights in Thailand PDF Author: Don F. Selby
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295102
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
When the Thai state violently suppressed a massive prodemocracy protest in "Black May," 1992, it initiated an unprecedented period in Thailand. The military, shamed and chagrined, withdrew from political life, and the democracy movement had more latitude than ever before in Thailand's history, gaining an institutional presence previously unseen. This extraordinary moment created a unique opportunity for the human rights movement to emerge, for the first time, on a national scale in Thailand. Don F. Selby examines this era of Thai political history to determine how and why the time was ripe for such developments. By placing greater emphasis on human rights as an anthropological concern, he focuses on the understandings that social actors draw from human rights struggles. He concludes that what gave emergent human rights in Thailand their shape, force, and trajectories are the ways that advocates engaged, contested, or reworked debates around Buddhism in its relationship to rule and social structure; political struggle in relation to a narrative of Thai democracy that disavowed egalitarian movements; and traditional standards of social stratification and face-saving practices. In this way, human rights ideals in Thailand emerge less from global-local translation and more as a matter of negotiation within everyday forms of sociality, morality, and politics.

Historical Dictionary of Thailand

Historical Dictionary of Thailand PDF Author: May Kyi Win
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810865327
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
The second edition, which first provides an overview of the country in the introduction, traces the long and complicated history in the chronology and goes into much greater detail in the dictionary. Offering 64 new entries, as well as updates and revisions to older ones, the dictionary presents important persons, places, institutions, and more in an easily accessible resource. Significant recent events are discussed including the 1997-98 Thai economic crisis and its effects, reforms of the national government, and the growth in political roles of both businessman and other middle class members. In addition, the book updates basic information relative to population growth, urbanization, and industrialization of the economy. All this is topped off by a solid bibliography making this an essential reference tool.